Lot 31: ATTRIBUTED TO ALESSANDRO TIARINI

THE HOLY FAMILY WITH THE CHRIST CHILD READING

7 by 6 5/8 in; 179 by 169 mm

Pen and brown ink and point of the brush and brown wash heightened with white on light brown paper.Bears recent pencil attribution: Caravaggio and numbering on the mount: 1228

London, Royal Academy, The Paul Oppé Collection, 1958, no. 355

F.J.C. Houldsworth, Kingsbridge, Devon;
Sale, London, Christie's, 24 May 1921, part of lot 12, bought by Paul Oppé,
whose collection sold, London, Christie's, 5 December 2006, lot 31 (as Emilian? School, 17th Century)

Bold in execution and with several pentimenti, especially in the figure of St. Joseph, this drawing has been associated in the past with Faccini and Biscaino. The attribution to Tiarini was first suggested by Julien Stock. The style is comparable to a study representing a scene from the life of St. Benedict, in the Schloss Fachsenfeld collection, which Tiarini made circa 1613 in connection with the decoration of the cloister of San Michele in Bosco, Bologna. (1 )Although this drawing is not related to any surviving painting by the artist, such an intimate representation of the Holy Family must have been made in connection with a work intended for private devotion, like the small oil on copper in the Collezione Estense (inv.no. 299), representing The Mystic Marriage of St. Catherine and Saints, with the figures 'a mezza figura'. (2)

1. See E. Negro and N. Roio, Alessandro Tiarini, Reggio Emilia 2000, reproduced p. 35, under cat. no. 60
2. Ibid., p.122, no. 71, reproduced